planning & implementing v&a projects

Planning & Implementing V&A Projects ‘In their little worlds in which children have their existence there is nothing so finely perceived and nothing so finely felt as injustice.’

Advocacy and Innovation Funds for Education in Pakistan

Federal Ministry (Policy, Institutions…)

Provincial Government (Policies, Institutions laws, programmes and services

District Line Departments/NGOs(EDOs, Dos, DDOs, ADOs)

Community/SMC/Family/Parents/CBOsSchool/Teachers

CHILD


Social Mobilisation for Accountability in Education SectorOr

Broad Inter-related Sets of Activities for V&A Projects

Lobbying

Community Mobilisation Advocacy


Key Terms Defined

• Advocacy: Strategic use of information and other non-violent persuasive means to influence decision-makers and those who wield political power to bring about desired changes in institutional practices, priorities, laws and policies. (Example: Persuading provincial EMIS to include data on students with physical disabilities; engaging district teachers’ association to reduce teacher-absenteeism)

• Lobbying: A sub-set of advocacy, involving results-oriented interaction and negotiations with legislators and policy-makers to bring changes to policy and legal framework. (Working with MPAs and Minister of Education to amend Balochistan Free and Compulsory Education Act 2013)

• Community Mobilization: Community Mobilization uses deliberate, participatory processes to involve local institutions, local leaders, community groups, and members of the community to organize for collective action toward a common purpose (Forming citizens’ vigilance committees to monitor and report teacher absenteeism; creating a broad consensus in favour of sending girls to middle schools)


V&A Broad Sets of Activities with Additional/Supportive Components

Lobbying

Community Mobilisation Advocacy

Trai

ning

BCC


Community Mobilization-I

Catalysts Mobilizers

Larger Community


Community Mobilization-II

Catalysts

CommunityMobilizers


Behaviour Change Communication

KnowledgeApproval

IntentionPractice

Convincing Others


Macro-level Initiatives

-Lobbying

- Technical Services/Capacity Building

-Advocacy

Micro-level Initiatives

-Community Mobilization

-Technical Services/Capacity Building

-Behaviour Change Communication/Awareness Raising

Governance Reforms

Enabling Legal/Policy Environment

Improved Planning

Better Service Delivery

Improvements in Physical Environment

Improved Classroom Practices

Local Institutions/Groups Strengthened

Change in Behaviours

Increased Awareness

-Increased Enrolment & Retention

- Improved Learning

- Greater Satisfaction

-Accountable/Responsive Governance


Normative Contents of the Right to Education

Thematic Focus with the Child in Mind

Right to Education

Availability

Accessibility

Acceptability

Adaptability


Illustrative Issues• Availability

• There are no pre-primary schools in the public sector even though children are enrolled in what is referred to as kachi (pre-primary) classes in primary schools.

• In Sindh, 9965 public sector primary schools in rural areas i.e. 24% of total rural government primary schools do not have a building. (Pakistan Education Statistics 2010-11, Tables 4.1.2)

• Of around 125,000 middle school teachers in Pakistan, 23,008 have only studied up to matric. (Pakistan Education Statistics 2010-11, Tables 3.8)


Illustrative Issues-II • Accessibility

• In tehsil Daraban of Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakthunkhwa province, to cite just one example, overall mean distance to boys primary school is 3 km and for girls it is as high as 8 km. (Government of Pakistan, NWFP Mouza Statistics. (Agricultural Census Organisation, Islamabad 2008).


Illustrative Issues-III• Acceptability

• The assessment system in public schools encourages rote learning at the expense of creativity and analytical thinking.

• The school curricula in Pakistan have historically been used to construct an exclusively male Muslim identity and to present a highly distorted and simplistic version of the past.


Illustrative Issues-IV

Adaptability

• Absence or low coverage of non-formal education facilities for working children.

• Absence of facilities and learning materials for children with physical and mental disabilities.


Illustrative Issues V• Education Financing

Unit/Federation Allocation as a percentage of total education budget Current Development

Federal 74 26 Balochistan 70 30 Khyber Pakhtunkwa 81 19 Punjab 82 18 Sindh 90 10 Total 82 18


Illustrative Issues VI• Community Participation in School Management• A finding from Oxfam (GB) baseline study on girls’ education in 8

districts in Sindh and Punjab


Illustrative Issues-VI

The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2012 (Islamabad Capital Territory)

• In a clause replicated with some changes in provincial laws, the ICT Act makes it mandatory for parents to ‘cause a child to attend school’ except in the case of a ‘reasonable excuse’. In defining the ‘reasonable excuse’, the Act effectively excludes children with disabilities from mainstream schooling by authorizing the School Management Committee (SMC) to determine if the child is ‘incapable of attending school by reason of any infirmity or mental incapacity’. The provision amounts to discrimination in that it clearly gives a clean chit to schools which fail to have trained teachers and other facilities to cater to the needs of children with disabilities.


Illustrative Issues-VII• The Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory

Education Act, 2013

• The most worrying provision-and the one which is most open to abuse- is clause 16(6), which penalizes parents who fail to enroll or send their children to school. If the SMC is satisfied that a parent has failed to comply in the absence of a ‘reasonable excuse’, the offending parent will stand convicted with fine up to Rupees five thousand and additional fine in case of failure to comply and/or imprisonment extending to three months.


Steps Involved in a Typical V&A/Social Mobilization Project

Self-reflection and Situation Assessment

Setting Priorities

Setting Goal and Objectives/

Developing a Baseline

Devising Implementatio

n Methodology

Implementation

Review

Evaluation

Mon

itorin

g

Monitorin

g

Monitoring

Mon

itorin

g


Situation Assessment• Literature Review• Review of Laws and Policy Documents • Analysis of Secondary Data• PSLM• School Census • NEMIS/SEMIS/PEMIS Data • Survey Reports and Rankings etc.

• PRAs • Geographical and Issues Mapping • Problem Tree• Constructing a lifeline etc.

• Intervention Mapping


How not to phrase goal and objectives!

Goal: Improve the state of education in province X

Help improve the availability and quality of public sector primary education in Sindh Arid Zone region.

• Objectives: • To train X number of journalists in reporting on public sector primary education by Sep 2014.

(Is training journalists an end in itself?) Alternative• To help increase and improve the content of major national and provincial dailies dealing

with public sector primary education issues by December 2014. Activities:

• Conduct a content analysis of a representative sample of major Urdu and Sindhi daily newspapers to assess the current state of reportage and editorial comments on public sector education.

• Develop training material on education reporting. • Conduct a training of trainers in X number of districts. • Sign an MoU with press clubs in X number of training to hold training sessions at their premises • Conduct X number of training workshops for at least 20 journalists each in Y number of

districts. • Monitor the content of selected newspapers to assess the quantity and quality of stories ,

features and editorials on education issues.


Setting Goal and Objectives • Goal (Example): To improve quality of public sector primary schooling in

district X and Y through improved student-teacher ratio • Objectives (Examples) • To document the causes and consequences of high student-teacher ratio in

district X and Y as evidence base for advocacy by December 2013.• To have current distribution of teachers across primary schools rationalized

through advocacy with district education departments by January 2014. • To have Z number of additional posts for primary school teachers sanctioned in

districts X and Y by March 2014. • To lobby for a provincial minimum standard of student-teacher ratio at primary,

middle and secondary level being notified by September 2014. • To create awareness among parents in general and all SMC members in district X

and Y on the adverse consequences of high student-teacher ratio on the quality of education by April 2014.

• To train and recruit temporary (3 months) voluntary teachers in Z number of schools in District X and ZZ number of schools in District Y i.e. those with the highest student ratios by February 2014.


Implementation Methodology

Objective Activities Tasks

To document the causes and consequences of high student-teacher ratio in district X and Y as evidence base by December 2013.

-Conduct literature review

-Setting up a research design

-Developing Data Collection Tools

-Training Data Enumerators/Interviewers

-

Collecting relevant online literature; visiting libraries/NGO offices to get hold of relevant studies………

To have Z number of additional posts for primary school teachers sanctioned in districts X and Y by March 2014.

-Develop evidence-based advocacy messages for a) provincial education department b) political leadership c) district administration

-To prepare a short documentary highlighting the consequences of high student-teacher ratio in district X and Y-


Types of Monitoring• Input Monitoring

• Process Monitoring

• Output Monitoring

• Outcome Monitoring


Monitoring ExampleActivity Input Monitoring

IndicatorsProcess Monitoring

Output Monitoring

Outcome Monitoring

To have current distribution of teachers across primary schools rationalized through advocacy with district education departments by January 2014.

Numbers and qualification of advocacy staff hired

Relevance/Currency of background data used

Numbers and types of training material produced for journalists

Numbers and nature of community recommendations incorporated into project plan

Number of meetings held with EDOs

Number of orientation sessions held with journalists and editors highlighting the problem

Follow-up action plans coming out of training workshops

Number of meetings with other NGOs to raise the issue

Commitments provided by EDO to rationalize teaching positions

Number of articles written in local newspapers on the issue

Number of other NGOs’ seminars focusing on the issue of student-teacher ratio

Number of teachers redistributed to rationalize student-teacher ratio

Student-teacher ratio after redistribution

Qualification of teachers assigned to schools with high student-teacher ratio


Steps involved in an advocacy campaign • STEP 1 Self-assessment and critical reflection• STEP II Identifying the issue/problem• STEP III Collecting information• STEP IV Analyzing information• STEP V Identifying and analyzing advocacy audience• STEP VI Framing the advocacy objective• STEP VII Developing advocacy messages• STEP VIII Identifying advocacy tools and channels• STEP IX Preparing an action plan


Identifying Advocacy IssuesBe Specific

• For result-oriented advocacy, it is important that the issue or issues you pick up are specific and not too broad or vague. For example, it is all too well to raise awareness on the importance of education but when doing advocacy you need something more specific to focus on, such as medium of instruction, low numbers of girls’ school in your district etc.


Analyzing Information

Be systematic

Main Issue/Problem

Inadequate and

ineffective school

monitoring in South

Punjab

Consequences Causes

Sub-issue 1

Sub-issue 2

Sub issue 3

And so on


Analysis of State Actors

1. LegislatureMNAs, Senators, MPAs, Nazims, Naib Nazims etc.

What role have they played?

What are their legal obligations?

Who among them are supporters, fence sitters and opponents?

What do we want them to do?

National Assembly

Members Standing Committee on Education

Provincial Assembly

Provincial Assembly Standing Committee on Education

District Council

2. Executive

Federal Ministry

Provincial Ministry

Line DepartmentEDOs, DDOs etc.

3. Judiciary

Supreme Court

High Court

District/Session Courts

Regulatory Authorities


Framing Advocacy Objectives

• These have to be realistic and achievable in a specified time span. Vague and unspecific objectives are impossible to achieve and result in wastage of time and resources. In most cases, advocacy objectives link up with a higher goal, vision or an ideal. For example, a group may decide to do advocacy for an increased provincial budget for teachers’ training with the overall goal or vision of improving the quality of education. In this case, the advocacy objective would be to generate support within a specified time period among a certain number of government officials, MPAs, politicians and the relevant minister to allocate and endorse a specific percentage or amount of the provincial education budget to teachers’ training.


Framing Advocacy Messages

• Every advocacy message has a proposition at its heart. Put simply, the proposition is what a source wants a receiver to do as a result of attending to the message:

• Introduce mother tongue as medium of instruction in province X

• Increase the proportion of provincial budgetary allocation on education under ‘development’ head from the current 10% to 20% by financial year 2014 and 30% by financial year 2015.

• Reform provincial EMIS to include data on children with disabilities.

• Establish an independent Education Monitoring Commission in KP province as committed under electoral manifesto 2013.

Backed up by rational (evidence-based) and motivational/emotive appeals, tailor the message to selected medium and audience.


Identifying V&A/Advocacy Tools and Channels

• Based on objective(s)

• Audience Segmentation

• Most cost-effective channel/tool


Executive Accountability Wheel

Executive/Education Departments/Service Providers

Legislature/Standing Committees

Organisied Publics (SMCs, watchdogs, professional assoications) and Media

Electorate

Judiciary


Evaluation Dimensions/Criteria • Relevance

• Impact

• Effectiveness

• Efficiency (Value for Money)

• Equity/Inclusiveness

• Sustainability


Tips for Conceptualizing and Writing up Proposals •Be Creative/Think out of the Box

• Do not shy away from experimenting with new ideas in the name of being culturally sensitive. Cultures are not static, bounded entities.


Tips (Continued)

• Project proposals (objectives, goals and work-plans) are more than formal project documents. Their quality spills over into the quality of subsequent M&E and project implementation.


Tips (Continued)

• Establish strong and in-synch micro and macro linkages to maximize impact and sustain results.


Tips (Continued)

• Community is not a monolith. Every community is characterized by power relations. Think through community participation and representation carefully.


Tips (Continued)

•Do not propose an activity unless you’re absolutely sure how it will help achieve your objectives.


Tips (Continued)

•No one knows about children more than children themselves!


planning & implementing v&a projects

Education

technical

pakistan illustrative

compulsory

primary schools

pakistan community

district education

teacher ratio

community